


Ghost Hands

by otapocalypse



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Blood and Gore, Consensual, Death, F/M, Graphic Description of Corpses, Hand & Finger Kink, Hands, Safeword Use, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 00:30:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20957483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otapocalypse/pseuds/otapocalypse
Summary: Inej pays Kaz a visit, and they work on working through their trauma





	Ghost Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Hello I'm here to warn you to check the tags- this is smut without the smut, with lots of sad and gross stuff before we get there. Keep yourselves safe.

He was in Per Haskell's old office when she returned from the sea. Inej hadn't yet lost her tendency for silence, and slipped back into her role of the Wraith with the same comfort and familiarity as Kaz slipped on his gloves. The damned gloves. It'd been nearly a year since he'd seen her out of the harbor, sailing away with the smudge of shapes that were her parents, and each time he'd slipped his gloves off to touch her, the water rose over his head, choked his throat and painted visions of blue, puffy corpses across the backs of his eyelids. It was a conundrum, if nothing else. It was Hell summoned every time he dared touch heaven.

It was in the old man's former office that Kaz got the sense he wasn't alone. She couldn't get to him here, wouldn't come down from his old room and he could never get her to explain why, but it hardly mattered to Kaz anymore. Because Inej Ghafa was home. Slowly, methodically, he stood straight, leaning heavily on his cane for a moment, before setting it aside in careful, practiced movements. Not a sound as he lay it to rest on his desk, and curled his hands in towards his chest, his left first turning to meet his right, and in a disturbing yet now familiar dance, they worked in tandem to slip the gloves free.

His forefinger and thumb came to grasp the very tip of the leather on his right hand, pinching, and then pulling. Lazy, slow enough that he could feel the material drag along his skin, Kaz loosened the glove, then pinched the next finger of the garment, and tugged again, still slow as sin. The hair on the back of his neck rose, and he could smell rot and water and taste drowning and decay on his tongue. Then, the image of Inej up above, waiting like one of her Saints, being kept up because of him, washed the memories away. A smirk came to his face then, and he moved to pinch and tug again.

Nina, of all the poor fools he'd gotten involved with, had been the one to try and remedy his condition. Somewhere along the way she had linked death, touch, and gloves just as Kaz had.

"Protection?" She'd teased once, and when Kaz had failed to keep the darkness at bay upon hearing that, she'd guessed from the force of his temper alone.

Even the advice from a mistress of death wouldn't help, however. Conditioning was in itself conditional. Highly choosy about who it decided to bless, conditioning was apparently too good for a the bottom of the Barrel. Taking his gloves off did not help. Touching Inej, glorious torture that it was for the both of them, did not help. Neither did touching others- in fact, that had to be his least favorite item on the list.

Kaz brought himself back to the present, his right hand slipping free of the leather, ghostly pale in the darkness of the room. There was no moon to illuminate it, no magic or mist blurring any of the streetlamps from outside to create the illusion… it was only his hand. Pale, bare, ridged with tendons and stiff with the tension in his body, a single vein deciding to curl its way over the back, the bones visible clearly enough to trace out towards his fingers, each digit long and slim. It was a skeletal sight, and Kaz slowly flexed his hand, curling his fingers into a fist, and then unraveling it again. The muscles shifted beneath the skin, the tendons, all in time with each other, while the vein on top writhed like a creature disturbed from its slumber.

The other was not much better.

Kaz went through the same meticulous progress of turning his hands, now with a slight shake to them, pinching his glove, and tugging, dragging the leather over his skin, one finger at a time until he'd loosened the garment, and then in a traumatic and dramatic flourish, he slipped the glove finally free. The gloves were folded, and set aside. The left hand was flexed and curled in the same manner as the right, independent of Kaz, someone else's, but still undeniably his own. It was an odd feeling.

Without any more delay, he took up his cane again, barehanded, knowing none of the Dregs would notice, and left Per Haskell's office. He ascended the stairs one by one as he'd taken off the gloves, his cane falling heavy on each, the thump a resounding, rhythmic comfort and a warning. He didn't lean as heavily on it now, didn't feel the pain quite as sharply until the top of the stairs and even then, he bore it and stood straight.

Slipping into his own room was much less of a silent affair than Inej's sudden appearance in his window. Kaz limped his way through the door, shut and locked it behind himself, and didn't look at the window until he felt the tickle of his hair rising again. He then looked, and she was sitting there, another shadow in the gloom of the city. There was no moonlight to bathe her skin, no stars to accent the twinkle in her eye, no romantic music and no smile shared between them. And still, Kaz felt the world was a little lighter in her presence.

They spoke not a word for a long time. She was not his spider anymore, or even his Wraith, she had no reports for him and he had none to ask of her. It was Kaz who broke the spell, ruining the fun as he always did when she tried to sneak up on him.

"Come closer." And she did. Far be it from him to believe she would ever obey his orders, not really, but the excitement it caused in him still warmed him to his ears, and chilled him to the bone. The best part, the most dreaded part of the whole evening, was finally here.

It was always Inej who closed the distance, who drew the first blood. Like the first of their goodbyes out on the harbor, she would reach for his hand, would glide the tips of her fingers so lightly along his palm, and then slip them cleverly between his own. He didn't hesitate anymore, stiffening and clasping her hand in his own in the same moment, grimly instigating and embracing the moment when the waters would again rise over his head and death would once more fill his senses. It just wasn't fair.

She was so warm, and vibrant, and alive. Inej's pulse beat just below the surface, so amazingly and horrifyingly alive. Kaz had seen death, and had seen rot. He had seen what lay beneath that beautiful skin, the inner mechanisms that would be hard at work if anyone dared lay it open. It would be nothing like what he'd seen- the corpse of his brother, shiny, wet, and an alarming shade of blue, his center swollen to the size of a steer, while the rest of him had plumped up at a considerably smaller rate. Each globe that made up his once handsome face- forehead, nose, cheeks, chin, lips, even his eyelids, had grown until he'd become unrecognizable. His flesh had been soft, had given away like yesterday's paper soaked in the rain, and maggots had coated his eyes and genitals in an odd sort of cloth, as if trying to protect his dignity in death even as they ate away at his rot.

Kaz hadn't even time to retch at this image as that of Inej replaced it- Inej's hand, wrist, forearm laid open, shiny and wet and an alarming shade of red. Blood would spill, a pulse would beat, muscle would flex without the skin covering to make it beautiful-

"Look at me." And he did. Inej's eyes were the night itself staring back at him, and the lack of extravagance in them was comforting. He was glad they didn't look like deep pools, or the ocean, or a lake. He was glad looking into her eyes did not make him want to drown in them. "With me?" Came her voice then, and Kaz was in his room, holding Inej's hand at arm's length. But the waters and the corpses were gone. Dumbly, he nodded. "Good. Then come closer," she requested, her voice pitching low, low enough that he felt himself stir. He would gladly follow her orders.

She didn't ask to do what she did next, and Kaz was glad of this, too, as she pulled him to the old desk, pulled them both to sit on top of it, and then circled her fingers around his wrist, an electric feeling zipping through him when she brushed over his pulse point. Kaz let out a shaky breath.

"Fuck."

"With me." She replied, and he had to obey. Kaz watched, horrified and intrigued, as she turned his hand over, exposed his palm to the eyes in the room. It was as the back of his hand- pale, slim, skeletal. This didn't seem to bother Inej, who placed one finger at the base of his hand, and then drew it up along his lifeline, in the most light-hearted, ticklish way he'd ever felt that Kaz was immediately shifting where he sat.

"Inej," he growled out, face aflame as she kept going, up to the very tip of his ring finger, and then back down, slow, like the glide of the gloves, and he shuddered again. "Inej," Kaz repeated, unable to look now, as if she was doing something obscene, "What are you doing?"

"Touching you," she said plainly, and if he hadn't been so ill, he may have laughed. Instead, Kaz bit back his harsh response, and sucked in a breath as now two of her fingers repeated the motion, slipping up, causing an unbearable ticklish feeling right in the center of his palm as they passed over, a feeling that was unfortunate enough to find the path straight to his groin. It was sick, and tortuous, and when Inej added a third finger, this time letting her nails catch his skin, Kaz felt considerably weaker in the knees. He was glad they sat.

"Stop," he gasped raggedly, unable to pull away, rendered completely useless by the simple act of Inej tracing along his hand. She didn't stop, and he could have cursed her name and sang her praises as she began to trace again, all five fingers settling in the center of his palm, and then spreading slowly outward to the tips of his fingers. Inej pressed her hand against his own, and for the first time, Kaz realized she'd earned callouses out at sea- a rough, suddenly pleasant texture than caught over his skin as she moved, and sent another thrill through him.

"Inej, stop," he begged again, still motionless. He could pull away so easily, he could put an end to this torture, and yet when she looked at him, held his gaze, he felt the waters recede.

"With me, Kaz."

"Wraith-" he warned, watching in horror as she raised his wrist to her lips, and then the sickeningly wet, hot feeling of her mouth closed over his wrist in a gentle kiss. Kaz wasn't sure if the hitch in his breath was panic or arousal any longer, wasn't sure, that as he watched his Wraith kiss her way back to the center of his palm, that the heat and sweat that'd built there was from a desire to bolt, or a desire for something more than this. Not that it mattered what he wanted. Already the feeling was overwhelming, fear and hysteria crashing against the barrier in his mind as she nipped lightly at his palm, once and then twice, her teeth closing gently over the meat of his palm, and tugging just so.

Kaz shuddered again, and again, Inej pushed further, nuzzling into his palm with her eyes closed as if in bliss, creating another image that was going to be stuck in Kaz's mind for years to come, and one that was much more pleasant. She sighed then, a soft little noise so unlike Inej that Kaz felt weakness overtake him again, right before she slipped her lips over his fore and middle finger, and sucked.

Kaz hissed sharply, arousal as acute as pain lancing through him, and still neither of them ended this charade they knew they couldn't keep up. Inej seemed determined, though, her eyes still closed, heavily now, her brow furrowed as she laved her tongue over, around, between Kaz's fingers, every suck and kittenish lick sending another wave through him, pain, arousal, a sharp intake of breath that definitely wasn't enough. He was light-headed, hard, squirming stiffly as she teased him, and finally, as always, he was the one to ruin their fun.

"Rollins," Kaz barked shakily, and all the pleasure was gone, Inej, her touch, her lips- and he returned to his own head, still quivering and sick and endlessly frustrated with himself. Inej, however, was smiling, not a hint of pride or even a smug look in her features. Kaz glared at her for a moment, and when this was ineffective, spoke flatly.

"What? How could you be so damn happy?"

"I'm excited," came her answer, in a warm, breathy voice that should have been impossible and that cleared away the gathering storm clouds of his bad mood in an instant.

"You…"

"I didn't think of them," she breathed, closing her eyes, and Kaz felt a little baffled, before he realized she was talking about the pleasure houses. "I didn't shut down," she continued, effectively capturing Kaz's attention again, "I feel… I _want,_ so badly," she nearly growled, her voice smoldering low and her eyes fixed on him- that's what they were, two coals, burning with a fire that had Kaz transfixed to the spot.

"You'll have me," Kaz said quickly, his mouth dry and his suit still uncomfortably tight, "Without gloves. Without armor." She nodded. She believed him- she always did, every time.

"Then it was a pleasure doing business with you, Dirtyhands," the Wraith purred, and Kaz closed his eyes. When he opened them again, she was gone.


End file.
